Wednesday, 06 June, 2012

Society in Science, ETH Zurich's worldwide fellowship for outstanding postdoctoral researchers, has selected eight new fellows in research fields ranging from philosophy to applied systems biology

Society in Science - The Branco Weiss Fellowship, a program of ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich) to support outstanding junior scientists, has appointed eight new fellows. Nita Bharti, Karim Bschir, Zi Chen, Michael Fabinyi, Lea Haller, Michael Nash, Julia Sacher and Cheemeng Tan have received the prestigious award that can provide them with up to five years of academic freedom.

The Society in Science fellowship offers a generous personal grant of up to five years for researchers shortly after their PhD. The program belonging to ETH Zurich supports projects throughout the world: fellows can come from anywhere and are able to conduct their research at any institution. Applicants needed to demonstrate exceptional research skills and be prepared to look beyond their own scientific horizon. The eight new fellows are engaged in ecology, marine biology, evolutionary biology, cognitive neurology, computational biology, applied biophysics, biomedical engineering, nano science, history and philosophy.

CeNS associate Dr. Michael Nash was born in the USA and received a dual PhD degree in bioengineering and nanotechnology from the University of Washington, Seattle in 2010. He is currently at LMU Munich. Dr. Nash will undertake research to develop artificial bio-hybrid nanostructures that would convert agricultural wastes into sugars, providing a new approach to biofuel production.